International news agency CNN featured Kingsville, ON-based North American greenhouse tomato marketer Mastronardi Produce on the "Lou Dobbs Tonight" show on June 30.

With the focus of the produce industry centered on the Salmonella outbreak, CNN correspondent Kitty Pilgrim, sitting in for Lou Dobbs, was quick to point out the key successes of Mastronardi's traceability program.

For many years it was called Baesler's Meat Market, and this single store in Terre Haute, IN, was proud of that designation.

But Baesler's, now a full-service retailer, has dropped the "Meat" part of its name, and fourth-generation owner Bob Baesler said that produce is now the top draw -- and has been for quite some time.

"Produce is number one with our customers and it has been for probably the last eight years," said Mr. Baesler.

Four Seasons Produce Inc.'s distribution center in Ephrata, PA, has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's prestigious Energy Star, the national symbol for superior energy efficiency and environmental protection that is awarded to some commercial buildings and industrial plants that rate in the top 25 percent of facilities in the nation for energy efficiency.

Four Season's facility is one of only two refrigerated warehouses in the country to earn the designation.

SALINAS, CA -- The Grower-Shipper Association of Central California presented its E.E. (Gene) Harden Award for lifetime achievement in Central Coast agriculture to Jim Lugg of Fresh Express.

The award was formally presented to Mr. Lugg June 21 as part of the organization's annual dinner-dance at the Corral de Tierra Country Club in Salinas, CA. The association's chairman, Dennis Donohue, presided over the presentation along with Fresh Express President Tanios Viviani and association President Jim Bogart.

WASHINGTON -- The epidemiological evidence may point to tomatoes as the likely cause of the Salmonella outbreak, but health officials say they are "keeping an open mind" as new illnesses continue to be reported.

"We continue to see a strong epidemiological association with consumption of tomatoes," said Patricia Griffin, chief of the Enteric Diseases Epidemiology Branch at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. But produce investigations are very difficult because vegetables are often eaten together, Dr. Griffin said at a June 27 press briefing.